Patricia sat on the lowest step of a stairway leading to the top of the breakwater. "And how can we help you?"
"That's a complicated question, actually," Toller said. "You can best help us by supporting us. Or—by not opposing us."
"You can all go home now," Patricia said. "Such as it is."
Toller paused for a moment, puzzled by the abruptness of her leap of ideas. "Exactly." He sat beside her, and she edged a few centimeters away. "Such as it is. Personally, despite Ser Lanier's most heartfelt plea, I see little reason to return to Earth now."
"You could help the survivors."
"Patricia, they—you—become us. I see nothing iniquitous with letting a world heal itself. The fact that we've made a causal loop—that we can return to the worst point in our world-line—is not what I would consider an opportunity. At the moment, it's a handicap. Has Olmy explained how we hope to push the Jarts from the Way? For good?"
She shook her head.
"It's an ambitious plan. You've heard rumors about secession—having the Axis City divide in two?"
She decided to play dumb and shook her head again.
"Our flaw research group discovered, years ago, that the Axis City could be accelerated to near c—to near light-speed. There would be no damage to the city itself, and the citizens would experience only minor discomfort—"
"I think we should all hear about this," Patricia decided suddenly, standing up. "I mean, all of my group. Not just me."
"They can learn as much as they want. You can guide them when they get back to the Axis City—it's all available in City Memory. Or Olmy can explain it to you."
"Why hasn't he told us already?"
"Patricia, our world is extremely complex, as you know perhaps better than I. I doubt Olmy has had the opportunity to educate you on a thousandth of the more important things there are to know about us."
"Okay," Patricia said, stepping onto the sand and facing Toller. "I'm listening."
"It would take over a day to approach that velocity, accelerating at about three hundred g's—which is very close to the theoretical limit for the inertial damping systems, and for something as large as the Axis City, traveling on the flaw. The flaw would be seriously stressed, producing hard radiation and heavy particles. . . . But within the Way, even a velocity of one-third light-speed would create a space-time shock wave. We would reach that velocity at about one point seven ex nine. We would pass through the territories held by the Jarts with devastating effect. The relativistic distortions within the Way would be incredible. The shape of the Way itself would be altered as we passed, and whatever gates the Jarts have opened would be smoothed out of existence"—he slid his hand in a flat-out gesture—"like ironing a piece of fabric in one of your world's laundries."
Patricia's eyes became distant. Her mind was racing now to absorb the idea of a relativistic object within the Way—and the realization that within the Way, an object traveling at only one-third c would be relativistic.
"A grand scheme, don't you think?"
She nodded abstractedly. "How far would you travel down the Way?"
"That's still being debated."
"And what are the alternatives?"
"The conference is considering the alternatives even now—and have been for over three weeks. We believe the Jarts will break though our barriers in a matter of years, perhaps months. They'll overrun our most extended gates—we'll shut them down and withdraw, of course—and eventually, by the end of the decade, they'll push us back into the Thistledown. We'll have to evacuate, and to keep them from following us, we'll have to destroy the Way. That would be an incredible calamity."
"You're certain about this?"
Toller nodded once. "We cannot hold them for long. They've grown quite strong, and they've enlisted the help of other worlds—by opening gates all up and down their segment of the Way."
"Couldn't you do the same?"
"As I said, they've occupied the Way for several centuries longer than we have. They're more familiar with it, in some ways, than we are, even though we created it."
Toller wasn't telling her about one of the alternatives the rogue had mentioned—blowing the Thistledown from the end of the Way and "cauterizing" it, sealing it closed so it would continue to exist, independently of the sixth chamber machinery. She decided not to ask him about that possibility. "It's fascinating," she said. "Gives me a lot to think about."
"Yes, well, I'm sure I've violated all the rules of etiquette, Patricia. You've been very kind to listen to me. Our time is quite limited, as you see, and you've brought an additional element into the equation. . . .”
"I'm sure we have," Patricia said. Perhaps more than you know. . . “I'd like to walk back now."
"Certainly. I'll accompany you."
She smiled at him, eyes still distant. Toller said very little as they retraced their steps up the beach to the resort buildings, and that suited Patricia.
She was already slipping into the state, her mind working, conjuring up her personal notation. Passing quickly through Lanier's room, she made a few excuses and retired to her own quarters, lying down on the bed and closing her eyes tightly.
Toller greeted the others and spoke with them for several minutes, explaining he had had a good conversation with Patricia concerning subjects of importance to all of them. After he left, Lanier knocked on Patricia's door, and received no answer.
"Patricia?" he called.
"Yes," she said softly, scrunching up her face.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm resting," she said. "I'll join you for dinner."
He looked at his watch; their second meal on the Frant World, ostensibly supper, would begin in an hour. He returned to his room.
"How is she?" Carrolson asked.
"Fine, she says. She's napping."
"Not likely," Farley said. "I wonder what Toller told her?"
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The meeting between the three men who had taken Mirsky's mantle of authority began and ended in half an hour. It was held in Pletnev's private cabin, with Annenkovsky standing guard outside to make sure nobody listened in.
The topic was Mirsky's message to Garabedian. The solution to the problem they now faced, Pletnev insisted, was simple.
At first, Garabedian and Pogodin were hesitant. Pletnev had insisted they had no other choice, however. "Look, they tried to kill Mirsky, and they were locked away," he said. "Now they'll be released. Isn't it obvious? It's what the American woman thought. It makes sense to me."
"So what do we do?"
Pletnev hefted his Kalashnikov. Most of the laser weapons had long since run out of charge, and besides, he had always preferred bullets.
"Won't we be locked up?" Garabedian asked.
"Was anyone locked up after all the fighting?" Pletnev asked. Pogodin shook his head.
"Then we'll just kill them away from the city."
"I don't like the idea of killing them without a trial."
"We don't have any choice," Pletnev said. "Shit, Mirsky left you the message, but I'm the one who understands what he was really saying. Vielgorsky still has his supporters. Without Mirsky, the three of us can rule reasonably, but if the Zampolits return, we'll all be shot. We meet them, and we do what we must. Agreed?"
Pogodin and Garabedian agreed.
"Then let's go," Pletnev said. "We'll wait them out. Better to be early than to miss them."
Mirsky had abandoned the truck on the water's edge and walked inland with his backpack filled with dry rations. Fingerlakes were plentiful in this area of the fourth chamber, and the fishing everywhere was excellent. He had little doubt he could survive. These forests were not meant to be harsh environments. In the regions where it snowed—roughly one-fourth of the chamber, in an area whose outer boundary was the 180 line—the snow was light, and it rained just often enough all over to maintain the chamber's plant life.
He would hardly be "roughing it."
The first few days he
had spent peacefully, doing little besides making an adequate fishing pole. He had read the American biologist's reports on the fourth chamber and knew there would be earthworms and grubs to use as bait. His anxiety tapered off, and he wondered why he hadn't bothered to leave sooner.
He seldom encountered the boundary markers of his new mentality now. Either they were fading with use, or he had learned to ignore them.
On his fifth day in the l80 woods, he found signs that he was not alone. A Russian ration packet and an American plastic container revealed that one or more Russian soldiers had found their way here. The discovery didn't bother him. There was room enough for virtually everybody, and in privacy besides.
On the seventh day, he met a Russian at the edge of a grassy clearing. He did not recognize him, but the soldier knew Mirsky and quickly faded back into the woods.
On the eighth day, they saw each other again across a narrow lake, and the soldier did not run away.
"You're alone, aren't you?" the soldier asked.
"Until now," Mirsky said.
"But you're the commander," the soldier said resentfully.
"No more," Mirsky said. "What's the fishing like here?"
"Not so good. You notice there are mosquitoes and flies everywhere, but they don't bite?"
"Yes, I've noticed."
"I wonder why?"
"Good design," Mirsky suggested.
"I wonder if it ever snows."
"I think it does, once every year or so," Mirsky said. "But it doesn't get very cold. Not like Moscow."
"I would like for it to snow," the soldier said. Mirsky agreed, and they met at one end of the lake and walked through the woods together, in search of a better fishing spot.
"The Americans would say we were Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer," the soldier observed as they dipped their threadlines into a stream. "You know, the Americans aren't as bad as they were on Earth. I thought about defecting before I decided to leave for the woods."
"Why didn't you?" Mirsky asked.
"I didn't want to be around anybody. But I'm not sorry you're here, General." The soldier bobbed the tip of his pole, hoping to entice a trout. "Restores my faith in humanity. Even a general wants to get away from it all."
The soldier, who never told Mirsky his name, had left the compound weeks ago, before Mirsky's death in the library. He knew nothing of what had happened, and Mirsky did not tell him.
He was beginning to feel like a normal human being again and not a freak or a ghost. Having the time to sit and admire a drop of water on a leaf, or the way water rippled outward from a fish rising for an insect, was wonderful. It no longer mattered who he was, simply that he was.
Two more days passed, and Mirsky began to wonder if anybody would come searching for them. High-power telescopes could spot them easily, and with infrared sensors, it wouldn't matter whether they were hidden under trees or not. By now, he suspected, the Zampolits were free again, consolidating their position of power—if Pletnev and the others hadn't acted on his warning.
He was only faintly curious about what had happened.
What he missed most of all was night. He would have given anything to spend a few hours in pitch darkness, to be able to close his eyes and see nothing, not even the faint brown glow of shadowy forest light through his eyelids. He also missed the stars and moon.
"Do you think anybody we know on Earth is alive?" the soldier asked one morning as they cooked trout in a flat press of stripped branches over a small fire.
"No," Mirsky said.
The soldier bobbed his head, and then shook it in wonder. "You think not?"
"It's not very probable," Mirsky said.
"Not even in the high command?"
"Maybe. But I never really knew any of them."
"Mmm," the soldier said. Then, as if it was relevant, he said, "You knew Sosnitsky."
"Not really."
"He was a good man, I think," the soldier said, removing the trout and filleting it expertly with his shroud-cutting knife. He handed half to Mirsky and threw the head and bones into the bushes.
Mirsky nodded and ate his fish, skin and all, chewing thoughtfully until he spotted a silvery glint in the trees behind the soldier. His chewing stopped. The soldier saw him staring and turned his head.
A long metal object floated between the trees and stopped a few meters away. Mirsky's eyes widened; it resembled a chromium Russian Orthodox barred cross, with a heavy teardrop on its lower extremity. At the junction of the angled bar and the horizontal post of the cross was an intense glowing red spot.
The soldier stood. "Is it American?" he asked.
"I don't think so," Mirsky said, also standing.
"Gentlemen," a female voice said, speaking English. "Do not be alarmed. We intend you no hurt. Our detectors tell us there is a corporeal individual here who has undergone supplementary surgery."
"It is American," the soldier said, backing away and preparing to run.
"What are you?" Mirsky asked, also in English.
"You are the one who has received supplementary surgery?"
"I think so," Mirsky said. "Yes."
The soldier made a peculiar grunt deep in his throat and crashed off through the trees.
"I'm the one, don't bother about him."
A woman dressed in black walked slowly between the trees. Mirsky thought for a moment that she had to be American, because of the uniform—but he noticed the style was quite different. And her hair—shorn to fuzz at the sides, with a sweep of crown hair cascading behind her head—was certainly not American. It took him some seconds to see she had no nostrils, and her ears were small and round. She stood beside chromium cross and held up her hand.
"You're not a citizen of the Axis City, are you?" she asked. "Not an Orthodox Naderite?"
"No," Mirsky said. "I'm a Russian. Who are you?"
She touched the bar of the cross and flashes of light passed through the air between them. "Will you accompany me? We are gathering all the occupants of these chambers. No harm will come to you."
"Do I have any choice?" he asked, still calm. Could a man who had died once already feel any fear?
"I'm sorry, no," the woman said, smiling pleasantly.
Judith Hoffman had just completed a marathon nine-hour session on the restructuring of the legal system for the NATO personnel on the Stone. Beryl Wallace had insisted she return to the women's bungalow afterward. Hoffman had fallen asleep in her room immediately, so exhausted that it took her some time to crawl up to awareness, and a few seconds more to realize what had awakened her. The comline alarm was chiming. She hit her switch. "Hoffman," she said, her tongue thick and unwieldy.
"Joseph Rimskaya in the fourth chamber. Judith, we're having a rash of boojum sightings—I've seen two myself."
"So?"
"They're metal, cross-shaped, zipping over our compound and over the Russian territories, too. We've followed some of them with our trackers. There must be twenty or thirty of them in this chamber alone. They're all over."
Hoffman gritted her teeth and rubbed her eyes before glancing at her watch. She had been asleep less than an hour. "You're at the zero compound in the fourth chamber now?"
"That I am."
"I'm on my way."
She shut off the comline just as she received another call. This time, Ann cut in and was dickering with the voice on the other end as Hoffman answered.
"Judith, I'm sorry," Ann said hastily. "Beryl told me to let you sleep and I was away for just a second—"
"Miss Hoffman, this is Colonel Berenson in the seventh chamber—"
"Please, Colonel," Ann cut in.
"This is an emergency—"
"Ann, let him talk," Hoffman said.
"Miss Hoffman, our sensors are picking up dozens—maybe hundreds—of objects, large and small. Some have entered the bore hole, almost certainly, and are in the sixth chamber by now—"
"They're in the fourth chamber, at least," Hoffman said. "Colonel, coordinate w
ith Rimskaya. He's made sightings, too. I'll be in fourth chamber on the next train."
She packed her small emergency case and ran down the hall, stumbling and almost falling at the head of the stairs. She grabbed a railing until her dizzy fatigue passed, then pumped down the stairs as fast as she could without breaking her neck. Ann met her at the bottom with a mug of water and stimulant tablets.
"Shit, what are these?" Hoffman asked, downing them.
"Hyper-caffeine," Ann said. "Lanier used them all the time. "
Hoffman slugged back two pills and the water.
"What is it this time?" Ann asked, her face pale. "Not another attack?"
"Not from outside, honey," Hoffman said. "Where are Wallace and Polk?"
"Second chamber."
"Tell them to be in fourth chamber, zero compound; tell them to meet me there or at the zero train."
Hoffman ran from the bungalow, shouting for a truck to take her to the second chamber. General Gerhardt ran on his stubby legs from the cafeteria, radio in hand, calling for marines, and waved for her to follow him. Doreen Cunningham met them at the security fence and pointed wordlessly to two trucks idling beyond the ramparts.
They were climbing into the nearest truck when the science compound alarms went off. Hoffman stepped away from the truck hatch and jerked her head back instinctively. Overhead, a barred silvery cross drifted at leisure. The heavy lobe on its end gave it a sinister and silly appearance at the same time. It reminded Hoffman of some outlandish weapon in an eighties martial arts movie.