“There have been so many coincidences. And too many of them revolve around you, Manella. Or events under your control. While everything was flying thick and fast, I had no time to put it all together. But during the last few weeks I kept getting this nagging feeling it was all too pat.”
“What was too pat?”
“The way I was hired by those generals, for instance … giving me carte blanche to experiment with cavitronic singularities, even though there were only vague hopes of giving them what they wanted in secret.”
“Are you accusing me of manipulating generals for your benefit?”
Alex shrugged. “It sounds ridiculous. But given the rest of the story, it wouldn’t surprise me. What is irrefutable is your role in what followed—seeing to it those riots caused my Alpha singularity to fall, just when I’d discovered a flaw in the old physics, and was about to arrange for a controlled shutdown myself.”
“You imply I made Alpha fall on purpose. What reason could I have?”
“Only the obvious. It made me obsessed with finding again what I’d lost … chivvying support from Stan and then George Hutton, till at last we built a resonator capable of chasing down Alpha—”
“—and incidentally detecting Beta, as well,” Manella finished for him. “Which means what?”
Alex could tell the man was toying with him, forcing him to lay down all his cards. So be it. “Finding Beta was key to all that followed! But never mind. Your tenacity in tracking me to New Zealand was another feat that fell just inside the range of the believable. So was the way you gathered together a team whose abilities just complemented what we had in New Zealand, so when the two groups merged—”
“—the sum was greater than its parts. Yes, we did bring together some competent people. But then, it was so hard keeping things secret after that—”
“Don’t prompt me, Pedro,” Alex snapped. “It’s patronizing.”
“Sorry. Really. Do go on.”
Alex exhaled. “Secrecy, yes. You proved uncannily able, running interference on the Net for us. Even with all his resources, Glenn Spivey marveled at how hard it was to track us down … till finally he did find us. Supposedly it was that McClennon woman who leaked the clues to him. But—”
“—but you suggest I leaked word to her. Hmph. Go on. What’s next?”
Alex kept a lid on his irritation. “Next there’s your disappearing trick at Waitomo, abandoning Teresa on the trail when Spivey arrived …”
“Presto.” Manella snapped his fingers.
“… and your equally dramatic reappearance on Rapa Nui, conveniently in time to influence my research and foil June Morgan’s sabotage.”
Manella shrugged. “Such thanks I get.”
“Thanks enough not to question how you rescued Teresa from that pit … or managed to be the sole person on the entire island to make it alive past the death angels and knock on Atlantis’s door … just in time to hitch a ride—”
He stopped as Manella lifted a meaty hand. “It’s still awfully thin, Lustig.”
“Thin!”
“Come on. All of those things could have happened without my being—what you imply. Where’s your proof? What are you trying to say?”
Alex turned now to face Manella fully. His blood was up and he no longer felt reticent at all. “It was you, I now recall, who seeded the idea of asking my grandmother to help get us a resonator site in Southern Africa. In exchange, you made sure she had full-time computer access!”
“So I’m a nice fellow. And things worked out so she was in a place to make a difference. Still, all you have is a tower of teetering suppositions and guesses.”
“I don’t suppose,” Alex growled, “it would bother you much if I insisted you be medically examined—”
“—not at all—”
“—down to the level of a DNA scan? No?” Alex sighed. “You could be bluffing.”
“I could be. But you know I’m not. This body’s human, Alex. If I were some little green pixie riding around inside this carcass—if this were some sort of big, ugly disguise—don’t you think I’d have suffocated by now? Wouldn’t I have arranged to wear a better-looking model?” Manella groomed his moustache in the window reflection. “Not that I’ve had many complaints from the ladies, mind you.”
In exasperation, Alex fought to keep from shouting. “Dammit, you and I both know you’re not human!”
The tall figure turned and met his eyes. “How do you define ‘human’? No, seriously. It’s a fascinating notion. Does it include your grandmother, for instance? In her present state?
“This is such an amusing discussion! But just for the sake of argument let’s follow your reasoning. Suppose we posit you have cause to suspect—no proof, mind you—that I’m unusual in some way.”
Alex swallowed again. “What are you?”
Manella shrugged again. “A reporter. I never lied about that.”
“Dammit—”
“But for the sake of argument, let’s consider the chance a fellow like me, who was involved in all the things I’ve been, might have had another job as well.”
“Yes?”
“Well, there are possibilities. Let’s see …” Pedro lifted an eyebrow. “Maybe as a friendly neighborhood policeman? Or a social worker?” He paused. “Or a midwife?”
Alex blinked once, twice. “Oh,” he said.
For the first time, Manella’s expression grew pensive, thoughtful. “I can guess what you’re thinking, Lustig. That all your conclusions back in Waitomo must be wrong. That Beta couldn’t have been a berserker machine, a weapon sent to wreck the Earth. Because see what actually happened! Rather than ruin a world, Beta became essential to bringing an entire planet alive.”
“Auntie Kapur. She told me to ‘seek the wisdom of sperm and egg.’ … Oh, these damn bloody metaphors!” Alex’s temples hurt. “Are you saying Beta was sent here to fertilize—?”
“Hey, I never admitted knowing any more about it than you do. We’re just doing a particularly bizarre, imaginative, pretend scenario right? Frankly, after all the things I’ve been called in my life, it’s a bit refreshing to be cast in the role of a friendly alien for a change!”
Manella laughed. “Anyway imagine a bunch of clever parameciums, trying to parse a Shakespeare play by likening it to ripples in the water when they wave their flagella. That’s a lot like you and me claiming we understand a living planet.”
“But the effects of Beta—”
“Those effects, combined with your intervention, combined with a thousand other factors, including my own small influence … yes, surely, all these things helped bring about something new and wonderful. And perhaps similar events have happened before in this galaxy, here and there.
“Maybe the results aren’t always as pleasant or sane as what happened here. Perhaps humans really are very special people, after all. Despite all your faults, this may be a very special world. Maybe others out there sensed something worth preserving and nurturing here.”
The warmth in Pedro’s voice surprised Alex. “You mean we don’t have enemies out there after all?”
“I never said that!” Manella’s brows narrowed with sudden intensity. Then, just as quickly, he visibly retreated again into his mood of blithe playfulness. “Of course we’re still only speaking hypothetically. You do come up with brilliant what-ifs, Lustig. This one is so intriguing.
“Let’s just say one possibility is that Beta came at an opportune time. After a painful transition, it was turned into an instrument of joy. But does it necessarily follow that the ‘father’ of this particular sperm was a friend? That’s one possibility. Another is, this world has managed to make the best out of a case of attempted rape.”
Alex stared at Manella. The man talked, but somehow nothing he said seemed to make any sense.
“I know you don’t want to hear more metaphors,” Pedro went on. “But I’ve given some thought lately to all the different roles humanity has to play in the new planetary being tha
t’s been born. Humans—and man-made machines—contribute by far the largest share of her ‘brain’ matter. They’ll be her eyes, her hands, as she learns to shape and spread life to other worlds in this solar system.
“But the best analogy may be to a body’s white blood cells! After all, what if the universe is a dangerous place as well as a beautiful one? It will be your job, and your children’s and their children’s, to protect what’s been born here. To serve Her and sacrifice yourselves for Her if need be.
“And then, of course, there is the matter of propagation.…”
The vistas Manella presented—even hypothetically—were too vast. He kept talking, but suddenly his words seemed barely relevant anymore.
By the same token, Alex suddenly didn’t care any longer whether his suspicions about the man were valid or just more tantalizing similes, drawn against the universe’s infinite account of coincidence and correlation. Rather, Manella’s latest comparison suddenly provoked in Alex thoughts about Teresa, how he felt about her in his blood, in his skin, and in the busy flexings of his heart. He found himself smiling
“… I’d like to think it’s that way,” Pedro went on in the background, as if garrulously lecturing an audience. “That there might exist others out there, scattered among the stars, who foresaw some of what was fated here. And maybe arranged for a little help to arrive in time.
“Perhaps those others feel gladness at this rare victory, and wish us well.…”
An interesting notion, indeed. But Alex’s thoughts had already moved well ahead of that, to implications Manella probably could not imagine, whatever his true nature. His gaze pressed ahead, past the bustling construction yards, along the film of air and moisture enveloping the planet’s soft skin. Skirting the hot, steady glow of the sun, Alex’s eyes took in the dusty scatter of the galactic wheel. And as his perplexed musings cast outward, he felt a familiar presence pass momentarily nearby, a propinquity invisible and yet as real as anything in the universe.
“YES, IT GOES ON,” his grandmother’s spirit seemed to whisper in his ear. “IT GOES ON AND ON AND ON.…”
Fluttering ribbon banners proclaim CONDEMNED, and warning lights strobe KEEP AWAY. But even tales of radioactive mutants cannot keep some people from eventually coming home. Even to the Glarus Alps, where gaping, glass-rimmed caves still glow at night, where angry fire once melted glaciers and cracked fortress mountains to their very roots.
Strange trees cover slopes once given to farms and meadows. Their branches twist and twine, creating unusual canopies. Beneath that forest roof, without metal objects or electronics, a band of homesteaders might feel safe enough. And anyway, even if they are spotted, why should the great big world fear one tiny restored village of shepherds in these mountains?
“Mind the dogs, Leopold!” an old man tells his youngest son, who knows packed city warrens and life at sea far better than these ancestral hills. “See they keep the sheep from straying, now.”
The youth stares across the valley of his forebears toward those tortured peaks. Their outlines tug at his heart and the air tastes pure, familiar. And yet, for a moment he thinks he sees something flicker across the cliffs and snowy crags. It is translucent yet multihued. Beautiful if elusive.
Perhaps it is an omen. He crosses himself, then adds a circular motion encompassing his heart.
“Yes, Father,” the young man says, shaking his head. “I’ll see to it at once.”
• CRUST
They had come to break up Sea State, and nobody, not even the Swiss navy, put up a fight to stop them.
Not that there was much to fight for anymore, Crat figured. Most citizens of the nation of creaking barges had come here in the first place because there was no-where else to go and be their own masters. Now, though, there were plenty of places. And somehow most people had stopped worrying so much about mastery anymore.
Crat lingered on deck watching the gradual dismemberment of the town that had until a few weeks ago seemed so gritty and vital. Under the Admiral’s Tower, orderly queues of families boarded zeps that would take them to new homes in the scoured zones … areas stripped of human life during the brief terror of the death angels. Now that the angels had been transformed, there were whole empty cities waiting to be refilled, with room enough for all.
Anyway, it had been made clear by the highest authority that the oceans were just too delicate to tolerate the likes of Sea State. Other territories, like Southern California, seemed to cry out for boisterous noise and other human-generated abuse. Let the refugees head there then, to remake the multilingual melting pot that had bubbled in that place before the crisis, and amaze the world with the results.
That was how one commentator put it, and Crat had liked the image. He’d even been tempted to go along—to have a house in Malibu maybe. To learn to surf. Maybe become a movie star?
But no. He shook his head as sea gulls dived and squawked, competing for the last of what had been a rich trove of Sea State garbage. Crat listened to their raucous chorus and decided he’d heard enough from stupid birds … even smarty-pants dolphins. The ocean wasn’t for him after all.
Nor Patagonia, especially now that volcanic dust threatened a reversal of the greenhouse effect, returning ice to the polar climes.
Nor even Hollywood.
Naw. Space is the place. That’s where the real elbow room is. Where there’ll be big rewards for guys like me. Guys willing to take chances.
First, of course, he’d had to finish taking big official types on tours of the seabed site where the company’s mystery lab had been. Apparently some nasty stuff had gone on down there, but nobody seemed to hold him responsible. In fact, one of the visiting investigators had called him “a steady fellow and a hard worker” and promised a good recommendation. If those tough jobs for miners on the moon ever opened up, that reference might come in handy.
I wonder what Remi and Roland would’ve thought. Me, a steady fellow … maybe even goin’ to melt rocks on the moon.
First he had to get there, though. And that meant working his way across the Pacific, helping haul the remnants of Sea State to reclamation yards now that ocean dumping wasn’t just illegal, but maybe suicidal as well. It would take months, but he’d save up for clothes and living expenses and a new plaque, and tapes to study so they wouldn’t think him a complete ignoramus when he filled out application forms.…
“Hah! Listen to you!” He laughed at himself as he hopped nimbly over narrow gangways to the gunwale where his work team was supposed to meet. “Becomin’ a reet intellectual, are ya?”
To show he wasn’t a complete mama’s boy, he spat over the side. Not that it hurt her nibs a bit to do so. She’d recycle it, like she would his soddy carcass when the time came, and good riddance.
A whistle blew, calling crew to stations. He grinned as the tug’s exec nodded to him. There was still plenty of time, but Crat wanted to be early. It was expected of him.
The others in his team shambled up, one by one and in pairs. He made a point of scowling at the last two, who arrived just before the final blow. “All right,” he told the gang. “We’re haulin’ hawsers here, not some girly-girl’s drawers. So if you want your pay, put your backs in, hear?”
They grunted, nodded, grimaced in a dozen different dialects and cultural modes. Crat thought them the scum of the Earth. Just like himself.
“Ready, then?” he cried as the bosun called to cast off lines. The men took up the heavy jute rope. “Okay, let’s show Momma what even scum can do. All together now … pull!”
PART XII
PLANET
It gets cold between the stars. Most of space is desert, dry and empty.
But there are, here and there, beads that glitter close to steady, gentle suns. And though these beads are born in fire and swim awash in death, they also shimmer with hope, with life.
Every now and then, as if such slender miracles weren’t enough, one of the little, spinning globes even awakens.
“
I AM.….” it declares, singing into the darkness. “I AM, I AM, I AM!”
To which the darkness has an answer, befitting any upstart.
“SO WHAT? BIG DEAL, BIG DEAL, BIG DEAL … SO WHAT?”
The latest little world-mind ponders this reply, considers it, and finally concludes, “SO EVEN THIS IS ONLY A BEGINNING?”
“SMART CHILD,” comes the only possible response. “YOU FIGURE IT OUT.”
Gaia spins on, silently contemplating what it means to be born into a sarcastic universe.
“WE’LL SEE ABOUT THIS,” she murmurs to herself, and like a striped kitten, purrs.
“WE SHALL SEE.”
AFTERWORD
This novel depicts one of many ways the world might be fifty years from now. It is only an extrapolation—what a physicist might call a gedankenexperiment—nothing more.
And yet, as I sit down to write this postscript, it occurs to me that we can learn something by looking in the opposite direction. For instance, exactly fifty years ago Europe was still at peace.
Oh, by August 1939 the writing was on the wall. Having already crushed several smaller neighbors, Adolf Hitler that month signed a fateful pact with Joseph Stalin, sealing the fate of Poland. China was already in flames. And yet, many still hoped that world statesmen would stop short of the edge. The future seemed to offer promise, as well as threat.
At the New York World’s Fair, for instance, you could tour the Westinghouse exhibit and see the wonders of tomorrow. A futurama showed the “typical city of 1960”—brimming with every techno-gadget Depression-era Americans could dream of, from electric dishwashers and superhighways to robot housemaids and personal autogyros. Naturally, poverty wouldn’t exist in that far-off age. The phrase “ecological degradation” hadn’t yet been coined.
We may shake our heads over their naïveté, those people of 1939. They got it right predicting freeways and television, but who knew anything back then about atom bombs? Or missile deterrence? Or computers? Or toxic waste? A few science fiction writers perhaps, whose prophetic tales nevertheless seem quaint and simplistic by today’s standards.