Crucible

  Finally she said tonelessly, “Kamal was a geneticist. We were married five years. He drowned inside a mine.”

  Julian said nothing, waiting.

  “You really want to know, don’t you? I think you already do.”

  “I know what I was told. I’d like to hear it from you.”

  She said, almost angrily, “We fought a lot. Kamal had a lot of work problems. Finally he created a hybrid wheat that he didn’t test well enough. Actually, he hardly tested it at all. It got out of the farm, cross-fertilized with a native grass, and produced an offspring that proved fatal to an insect analogue that fed on it. That could have affected an entire food chain. The eco-scientists caught it just in time. Kamal was taken off research, given small, safe tech jobs. He was outraged and we fought more. One day when he was testing water samples in an underground aquifer, he drowned.”

  “Did he kill himself?” Julian’s tone held neither pity nor censure, and so Alex was able to answer.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You blame yourself.”

  “Yes. No. Why do we always talk about me, Julian? Why don’t you tell me about your childhood?” She realized how harsh she sounded and laid a hand on his bare thigh.

  “Duncan and I grew up in a military family. Duncan is older— that surprises you?”

  “Yes. He seems younger than you.”

  “He’s three years older,” Julian said, amused. “I’ll put your mistake down to his childlike charm and not my haggard looks.”

  “You’re genemod enough to not have haggard looks, aren’t you?” She said this hesitantly; Greentrees had few or no cosmetic in-vitro genetic modifications. There was too much else to spend resources on.

  “Yes. Duncan’s voice is genemod, although our father expected it to be a commanding military instrument, not an actor’s trick. We were both supposed to be soldiers. Duncan refused, and was disowned.”

  “And you ended up commanding the Third World Alliance. How did that happen?”

  “Fortunes of war, backed by a lot of politics. As war always is. It would be hard to explain unless you knew more about Terran history.”

  There it was again—her ignorance of Terra. Alex was tired of hearing about it. She fingered the ring on his right hand, a gold band set with a small green gem. “Who gave you that ring?” She’d wanted to ask that for a long time.

  “My mother. She—what’s that noise?”

  Outside the window sharp ringing cracks erupted. Julian moved faster than Alex thought possible. A gun appeared in his hand. “Julian, where did you get— Julian!”

  In one unbroken motion he had pulled her to the floor, thrust her with his leg under the bed, and stood out of sight of the window, naked, aiming his weapon at the door.

  “They’re firecrackers!” Alex sputtered. “For Chinese New Year!”

  “The celebration was not permitted.” She had never heard that tone from him before: low, level, absolutely without emotion.

  “I know, but probably kids are marking the day anyway, beginning at midnight. For God’s sake, Julian!” Alex crawled out from under the bed, rubbing her bruises. “It’s just some harmless new thing Chu Corporation invented for celebrations. We had them at the fiftieth anniversary.”

  She could feel him staring at her, although she couldn’t make out his eyes in the dark.

  “Are you sure they’re firecrackers?”

  “Yes!”

  “I’ll check.”

  He must have believed her somewhat, because he stayed long enough to pull on his pants. He was back in a few minutes. Alex spent the time lying on her back in bed, gazing at the ceiling.

  “You’re right, just kids and firecrackers,” he said, “I dispersed them.”

  Dispersed. What a word.

  He added, “Firecrackers can easily be a cover for weapon fire. They won’t do it again.”

  No, they wouldn’t. Alex could imagine how Julian would have appeared to the Chinese kids.

  Before she could say anything, he said, “I should have remembered about the firecrackers. Duncan requested their use in his play.”

  “Do you want to go to the play together?” Alex asked. They hadn’t appeared anywhere in public together yet. They came together only late at night, after long days of endless work, for a few rushed hours. Waiting for his reply, Alex held her breath. Stop it, she told herself, you’re too old for these sort of silly tests, but she didn’t exhale.

  “Yes,” Julian said, “especially since you’re the only reason I’d go at all. Which play is it, again?”

  She tried to remember the strange name. “Macbeth. Why wouldn’t you go?”

  “There’s so much work to do. And theater has never interested me. It’s so unreal.”

  “Well, yes,” said Alex, who had seen almost none of it. “But I thought plays and fiction were supposed to reveal great truths underlying life.” So her school software had said, anyway.

  “I think most of them are more concerned with how life should be rather than how it is.” She heard the amusement in his voice.

  “It’s a big event for Mira.”

  “I know,” he said, the amusement gone. “I’ve been setting up security for Duncan’s theater. Too many people in one place.”

  She rose on one elbow. “Are you afraid that Hope of Heaven—”

  “They won’t get the opportunity,” Julian said, with such finality that she was silenced. “But you’re right; we have to go. Damn. Duncan’s frivolities win again.”

  Alex hadn’t known it was a contest.

  The new Mira City Theater was an ugly foamcast box, the basic second-generation building design. Alex had grudgingly approved the materials Duncan said he needed to build the interior, although these had been surprisingly modest. Apparentiy “Shakespeare” was often performed on a bare platform, with minimal lighting. Just as well.

  She noted the heavy security presence outside the theater. Julian’s new troops wore strange clothing from off his ship: not black-and-gold uniforms like his but thin, flexible metallic garments with heavy boots, belts, and helmets. The big helmets made them look menacing. When she asked, Julian said briefly, “Battle gear. A lot of built-ins. The uniformed sections are well equipped.”

  “Are there sections without uniforms?”

  “Oh, yes. And you shouldn’t be able to tell who they are.”

  If the soldiers out of uniform were at the theater, Alex couldn’t pick them out. She was dazzled by everyone’s sartorial efforts. The evening was warm, and all but the oldest women had left off their thinskins. Wraps in yellow, crimson, cobalt blue had been tied to show off cleavage, legs, shoulders, bellies. The younger men wore wraps, too, although the older ones stuck to their Threadmores or to a loose pants-and-tunic combination that was comfortable in warm weather. Even this had been dressed up with antique family jewelry brought from Terra. Others had necklaces or barrettes of polished native stone. Many Arabs wore their flowing white robes; a few Chinese had carefully preserved jackets or cheongsams in gorgeous colors, ornamented with embroidery such as Alex had never imagined.

  She wore a diamond necklace that had belonged to her mother. She’d washed and combed her hair and, at the last minute, pinned a flower in it. The approval in Julian’s eyes warmed her.

  Alex scanned the crowd. No Quakers, of course, or at least none of the older people she knew by sight. Siddalee had said some of the young Quakers were coming, in defiance of “simplicity.” Fewer Chinese than she expected. In those that were there, Alex thought she caught a hint of defiance in their manner: See, we’re as good citizens of Mira as anybody else.

  Well, most of them were.

  No one commented on or reacted to her attending with Julian. Probably they just assumed it was an official appearance, tray-o and defense chief. Alex didn’t know if she was pleased or disappointed.

  “Hello, Mayor Ashanti,” Julian said. “Madame Ashanti.”

  “Hello,” Ashraf said. He wore white robes. His wife walke
d behind him with some other Arab women, laughing behind their veils. Duncan had made arrangements for any Arab women who wished to be seated separately from the men. Alex wondered how many arguments had gone on in the medina between daughters who sat unveiled with their Anglo friends and mothers who objected, wives who wished to attend the play and husbands who objected, young women who upheld the old ways and their sisters who did not. Life in the medina was closed to Alex. But certainly she saw no signs of tension in Mrs. Shanti’s group of women enjoying themselves.

  Star Chu and a group of young Chinese walked by. They all had tattoos on their cheeks, in that absurd copying of Cheyenne absurdity. They smelled of Chu

  Corporation’s new perfumes, delectable scents like the Greentree nights. None of them smiled.

  Alex and Julian sat to one side of the stage, along with Ashraf and Jake. Had Lau-Wah not been murdered, Alex thought, would he have attended tonight?

  She noticed the way Julian’s eyes kept moving, studying each new group. A small multichannel comlink lodged in his left ear.

  The inside of the theater was as stark as the outside: rows of foamcast benches before a plain platform sprayed to form three levels. A few leafy branches stood upright in buckets, suggesting wood. Alex wasn’t impressed.

  “They’re late,” she said to Julian.

  “Duncan’s always late. He thinks it increases drama.” His green eyes never stopped moving. What was he hearing on the comlink?

  Alex turned away. She was determined to enjoy this Macbeth. She only hoped that it didn’t require a lot of Terran history or culture to be understood.

  The lights dimmed, a single circle of light shone on the stage, and a bleeding man staggered onto it. Alex’s eyes widened; it looked so real! But beside her Julian murmured, “He’s rearrange scenes again.”

  “Shhh!”

  Four men entered, dressed in rough brown cloth, one of them wearing a small metal crown. Alex didn’t recognize any of them. Duncan, searching for anyone more interested in an archaic Terran art form than in war preparations, had recruited his part-time actors among techs, apprentices, nurses, farmers. Alex knew Duncan hadn’t had a wide choice.” ’What bloody man is that?’” said the man with the crown, and she wasn’t transported to another time and place.

  Still, the plot was comprehensible, even through the elaborate language. The king, also named Duncan, was in the middle of a war. One of his soldiers, Cawdor, had betrayed him and was going to be executed. Macbeth was another of Duncan’s noble soldiers, and was going to be given Cawdor’s title. Alex was proud of herself; she could follow the action.

  The soldiers left, the lighting changed, and three fantastic figures entered, dressed in rags, with scales and wings like Chinese dragons. Alex stiffened.

  But the three were apparently not supposed to be Chinese, or even to be real entities. They spoke of magic and weaved weirdly around the stage. A few people in the audience tittered. More shifted restlessly in their seats.

  Then Duncan entered with another man, both dressed in armor. “’So fair and foul a day I have not seen,’” Duncan said in that double-toned voice, taut with hope and regret, layered with pain and satisfaction. Alex knew that doubt, that questioning: Was this a good day or a terrible one? Did I do the right thing? How

  will it turn out? If only things could have gone differently. So fair and foul a day. Yes.

  The audience quieted. In Duncan’s presence, the witches grew not silly but menacing. They told him of things to come, and Alex shivered.

  “ ’If you can look into the seeds of time,

  And say which grain will grow and which will not,

  Speak then to me…’”

  Grain. Kamal. And telling what will happen and what will not… if only they could do that about the Furs or Hope of Heaven! Alex glanced at Julian. He stared straight ahead, expressionless.

  Duncan said in that voice that vibrated along her spine:

  “ ’And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

  The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

  Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s In deepest consequence.’”

  Alex was entranced. The crude theater melted away, and Scotlan rose around her, dark and hooded. Women urged death, exulted in it, and men killed with weapons clutched in bare hands. Loyalty broke, spilling blood. Macbeth, haunted by his own soul, trusted no one:

  “ ’Those I command move only in command,

  Nothing in love; now do I feel my title Hang loose about me, like a giant’s robe,

  Upon a dwarfish thief.’”

  Macbeth stared straight at Alex. She turned to take Julian’s arm, but he was no longer there. She’d been so absorbed in Duncan’s magic that she hadn’t noticed him leave.

  “When the play ended, Greentrees sat in silence a moment, then fell to thunderous, inadequate applause.

  Alex elbowed through the crowd. The clapping went on and on. Duncan appeared with his company to bow deeply.

  Julian stood outside, talking into his comlink. “Julian. What is it, what happened?”

  “Yat-Shing Wong escaped. With two others.”

  “ ’Escaped’? What do you mean? Nobody was a prisoner!”

  “I mean they left Hope of Heaven. Two of my young Greentree soldiers are dead, killed by lances and spears. Furs.”

  “But why would wild Furs—”

  “I don’t know. I have to go down there, and I think you beter come, too. And Mayor Shanti.”

  “Yes. Just let me tell—”

  “My lieutenant will make an announcement, after Duncan has milked all his glory. Let me comlink Shanti.”

  Alex wished she’d worn a Threadmore. Numbly she pulled off the diamond necklace and sealed it in a fold of her wrap.

  Two Greenies dead. Killed by wild Furs. Who were the young soldiers? Did she know their families?

  Macbeth had left her mind. But not Julian’s. As he climbed into the rover he said abruptly, as if it mattered, “Duncan rewrote much of the play.”

  “He did? That wasn’t the story?”

  “That was the story,” Julian said. “But Duncan reassigned speeches. He gave himself all the best lines.”

  “In the beginning,” she said, because it was a relief after all to talk about something else, anything else, “I had the impression he was performing directly to you and me. Your opinion is important to him.”

  Julian didn’t answer. Ashraf hurried out, and they left for Hope of Heaven.

  14

  SPACE

  The ship was indistinguishable from that other Vine ship that had brought Karim and Lucy away from the Greentrees system. Then the others had been with them, Gail and Dr. Shipley and George Fox and Jake, firmly in charge. Karim couldn’t compute how many decades had passed since he and Lucy left Greentrees for the second time; he just didn’t have the data on Vine-planet diurnal duration or on ship acceleration. When they reached Greentrees, would any of their old comrades even be alive?

  It almost didn’t matter. They were going home. They were escaping the silent, motionless, pulpy world of the Vines that, Karim knew, had nearly driven both him and Lucy mad. It was too alien for humanity. There had been no point of contact, none, except the one that eventually mattered: Some Vine “death flowers,” genetic blue prints for their own dead, were on Greentrees and must be retrieved.

  “I don’t understand why,” Lucy had whispered to Karim. “If they can code so much information in molecules right in their cells, why don’t they already have the … the equivalent of a genescan for all their Vines killed on Greentrees?”

  “I think it’s more than a genescan. I think the death flowers somehow encode the Vines’ experiences since they left their own planet,” Karim whispered back. They didn’t know if they were being overheard, or even if they could be overheard. The ship was completely familiar from the last voyage with Vines, and completely alien.

  It was one large circular room perhaps a hundred yards across. The ship recreated what,
this time out, Karim recognized as a compressed version of a Vine planet. Seething slime like that from the pit covered the entire floor and crept up the walls and onto the ceiling. Silent Vines, smaller than the ones on-planet, grew tumbled together in clumps, their branches or tentacles intertwined. Runners across the slime connected the various groups of Vines. The light was very bright, the room stiflingly hot and humid.

  Near the air lock the slime had drawn back from a small patch of metal floor, pitted and corroded, and here the humans sat, beside the translator that Karim had thrown into the pit. Or maybe it was another translator. Unlike their planetary cousins, these Vines were interested in acquiring English. Genetically bred for space travel, Karim guessed. He and Lucy had gone through the wearying business of babbling for days in order to give the translator enough vocabulary and grammar to work with.

  “When we come to Greentrees,” the translator said, “our death flowers are on Greentrees.” The translator gave out an uninflected monotone; nothing in its mechanical voice betrayed the anxiety that led the Vines to ask the same question over and over.

  “Yes,” Karim said, “your death flowers are on Greentrees,” and hoped to Allah it was true. How much relativistic time had passed on Greentrees? Had Jake and Shipley preserved the death flowers?

  They must have.

  What would the Vines do if they hadn’t?

  Days passed, then weeks. At least, Karim guessed it was weeks. The ship never darkened for any artificial night. Karim knew from the bowing of the floor, necessary to compensate for tidal forces, that the ship was at maximum acceleration. Not long now, and he and Lucy would walk on a planet with color and sound and motion! Birds wheeling overhead, river rushing along, night insects humming… why hadn’t he ever realized how alive Greentrees was, how vivid and precious!

  The ship stopped.

  He knew it only from the visual flattening of the floor. He shook Lucy, asleep on their metal patch free of slime. “Wake up! We’re home!”

  “We come not yet to Greentrees,” said the translator.

  “Not… at Greentrees? Where are we?”