Beyond the fields and villages, the road spiraled around a low mountain crested with sky-pointing prisms of translucent gray rock. At the top of the mountain, resting on a plateau formed by the prisms, a squat white-and-copper-banded dome rose some sixty meters higher, ballooning at its base into a broad pavilion. The bus drove under the outlying skirt of the pavilion and stopped.
Olmy led them toward the well-kept but obviously ancient bronze, black iron and white enamel works beneath the hollow dome. Standing beside a five-meter-wide horseshoe-shaped mount was a muscular, apparently middle-aged man, naked from the waist up, a tool kit hanging from his broad belt. His skin had a deep brown color, with a faint rainbow sheen. Three Frants stood at other points around the equipment, talking among themselves in low tones as they worked with polishing cloths. Above them all towered a huge cage of crisscrossing black iron bars, like a misplaced Victorian bridge.
"It's a telescope," Heineman said. "It's beautiful!"
"It is indeed a telescope," the brown man said, smiling. "The last the Frants built before our gate opened."
"This is Ser Rennslaer Yates, secondary gate opener," Olmy explained, introducing them around. "He will accompany us to one point three ex nine."
Yates unhitched his tool kit. "This meeting has been long expected. Ser Olmy has kindly kept me informed about all of you. The Frants indulge me by letting me tinker with their historical treasures." He pointed with one hand to the telescope and the dome and pavilion, then donned a blue cloth shirt and closed it by pressing along a seam. "There's not much need for gate openers now. The primary can do most of the work very well without us." He approached Patricia. "Olmy's told me a fair amount about you. You've made some impressive discoveries."
Patricia smiled but said nothing. Her eyes, however, were bright and square: cat with a secret. Lanier felt a surge of—pride? something else?—as he realized how much she had improved since last night.
"I'd love to tinker with that," Heineman said wistfully.
"Perhaps someday you will—or one like it. Frants are not much for preserving their past, I'm afraid." He patted the telescope mount. "I will not be back here for some time," he said sadly. To Heineman and Carrolson, he confided, "I'd ask them to keep up the work, but they'll be reassigned—wander off and homogenize, as Frants do—and it will start decaying all over again. In its day, you know, this instrument and fourteen others like it were kept busy from dusk to dawn, searching for the comet sweeps." He waved his hand, bidding them to follow him beyond the rim of the pavilion and across a narrow, flat field.
At the lip of the steep precipice, they looked across the flatlands and the sea beyond. "The Frants were already moving into the space age when we arrived. They had built thousands of missiles with nuclear warheads—fantastic, ingenious and very jumbled technologies; jerry-rigged could you call them? It had been over nine centuries since the last major impacts, and they were waiting.
"If this instrument or any of the others had sighted comets, then trajectories would have been computed by thousands of Frants linking minds. Years it might have taken them, but otherwise they had only primitive computers. The villages would have been moved, placed in safer areas. Every village on the planet in motion! They were saved from that. Still, this"—raising his hand to the dome—"was a noble instrument." He shook his head. "Ser Olmy! Lead on. I am done here." He hugged each of the Frants and touched their hands in the homogenizing gesture, though for a human it was purely a formality.
They were about to board the truck when one of the Frants, standing in the sunlight at the edge of the pavilion, whistled and pointed toward the coast. Sweeping inland, three tiny white points were approaching the telescope. Olmy frowned.
"Mr. Lanier, please take your people back to the telescope. Ser Yates, could you stay close to them?" Yates agreed and followed them back to the center of the pavilion.
"What's happening?"
"I don't know," Olmy said. "We weren't scheduled to be met by gate police."
The three white points grew rapidly to full-sized, blunt-arrowhead craft. The craft circled the telescope and settled on the flat field to the north. The nose hatch of one craft opened, and out stepped Oligand Toller, four gate district representatives and a Frant marked with the green sash of diplomatic authority. Toller walked quickly toward Olmy, eyes directly on his.
"There are difficulties in the Axis City," he said. "I'm instructed to cut off your visit and return all of you to the Axis City immediately."
"Please explain," Olmy requested. "What are the difficulties?"
"Korzenowski factioners and orthodox Naderites have taken illegal authority and cut communications between the precincts. The President has adjourned the Jart conference and left Timbl and is now on his way back to deal with it. We must leave now."
"Wouldn't it be best to keep everyone here?" Olmy asked. "Until the situation becomes more clear."
"It is very clear. The secessionists are trying to force the issue." Toller resorted now to tight-beam picts. The color of his message was an agitated red-edged purple: "Our guests are key figures in this dispute. You know that, Ser Olmy."
Olmy did not pict. "I understand, Ser Toller. But you miss my point. Ser Yates is now ranking human on Timbl, if the President has left."
Toller sized the situation up quickly. "You refuse to release them? I am operating under authority of the President."
"I don't refuse to release all of them," Olmy said. "Only two will remain with us. You may take the others."
Lanier began to protest, but Olmy shot him a glance that demanded silence.
Toller backed a step away. "I could order the gate authority to arrest all of you."
"No bluffing, please, Ser Advocate," Yates warned. "Even an inactive gate opener is obeyed by gate authority. Who is the other you wish to stay with us?" he asked Olmy.
"Mr. Lanier," Olmy said.
"Are you with the secessionists?" Toller asked him, clearly angry now. Olmy did not answer.
"We will keep Patricia Luisa Vasquez and Garry Lanier," he said. "You may take the others."
"We refuse to be separated," Lanier said, stepping forward despite Heineman's hand on his arm.
"You have no choice," Olmy said. "We're past the point of euphemisms and diplomatic games, Mr. Lanier. I choose you in order that you may assist us with Miss Vasquez. The others will be safe."
"We guarantee the safety of all," Toller said. "Except those who go with you, Ser Olmy."
"Ser Ram Kikura is their advocate. She will accompany these three, wherever you take theme—and watch out for them," Olmy instructed.
Mechanical workers emerged from the craft and rolled or floated to surround Farley, Carrolson and Heineman. "Garry," Farley said, her voice strained.
"They will not be harmed," Olmy reiterated. "This is not that kind of struggle."
"The Thistledown is being cleared at this moment," Toller said, hoping to arouse more defiance. "Corprep Rosen Gardner is in charge of a campaign to evacuate the asteroid."
Olmy nodded as if that were obvious.
"What will you do with Vasquez and Lanier?" Toller asked.
"Please take the others now," Olmy said. "They are your responsibility."
"This is intolerable. When word gets down the Way, gates will be closed, lanes cleared—"
"That's what the Geshels planned anyway, isn't it? To expedite clearing the Way of Jarts. That's the decision the conference was about to reach, at the suggestion of the President, or am I wrong?"
Toller glanced nervously at the secondary gate opener. "You are cooperating with this. . . secessionist?"
Yates merely smiled, removed his torque from the tool-kit, and picted a symbol of Earth wrapped in a circular string of DNA.
Shaking his head, the advocate gestured to the workers, who guided Farley, Carrolson and Heineman toward the waiting craft. Carrolson was livid with anger. "Are we just going to go along with this?" she cried.
"I don't think we have any choi
ce," Heineman said, his expression long and solemn. "There goes Patricia's birthday party. Watch your step, Garry."
Farley looked over her shoulder at Lanier, tears flowing down her cheeks. "Garry?" she called back.
"You sons of bitches," Lanier said to Olmy and Toller. "Patricia was right. We're nothing but pawns."
"Don't underestimate yourselves," Toller said. He returned to the craft with the gate district representatives in his train. The diplomatic Frant stayed behind. The craft took flight again, heading toward the gate reception area.
"My apologies for your distress," Olmy said. "Now. We must proceed to one point three ex nine immediately. Things are happening much sooner than expected."
Wu Gi Me and Chang i Hsing carried boxes of equipment and papers out of the tent with the help of Berenson's troops, loading them into the back of a truck. A cool breeze descended from the southern cap, stirring the tent fabric. Except for their heavy breathing and footsteps, and occasional guttural exclamations from Berenson, the evacuation was conducted in silence.
Six metal double-barred crosses hovered three meters above the road, their red spots seeming to watch every move the soldiers and scientists made. Far above, at the center of the plasma tube, something long and black was aligned on the singularity, no more than fifty meters from the opening of the bore hole. Examining it through binoculars, Wu estimated it was 150 meters in length. It had arrived less than ten minutes earlier, prompting Berenson to order the evacuation.
When the truck was full and the tent empty, the soldiers crawled on top and the Chinese took the remaining two seats in the front. Berenson grabbed a handgrip along the roofline and stepped up on the side ladder. The truck jerked forward and swung around to roll up the ramp.
With the chamber deserted, the crosses bunched into a cubic formation, then flew off to circumnavigate the chamber floor.
From the vantage of the flawship, twenty-five kilometers above, an assigned ghost of Corprep Rosen Gardner watched the proceedings, relaying everything by direct beam down the Way to the Axis City.
In the Axis City itself, communications between the three rotating cylinders and Central City had been severed. Axis Nader was completely blocked off from the transport systems. And major sections of City Memory—usually active around the clock—were now isolated and quiet. The tide had turned; the radical Geshels had tripped themselves up in their own haste to take advantage of Olmy's news and the five guests.
The incarnate Corprep Rosen Gardner had moved to the Nexus Chambers a few hours before, risking the uncertain location in Central City to be at the center of all Axis City activity. He had created four partials to handle the details of the revolt.
None of his factioners or supporters called it a revolt; for them, it was a necessary maneuver to protect their rights against action by radical Geshels. Whatever it was called, it was hideously complicated.
Word from the Thistledown was incomplete, but that was the least of Gardner's worries now.
His partials were in the three Axis cylinders and in the offices of the Way Commerce Committee at nine ex six. His militant factioners held all strategic transport sites within the Axis City, and along the Way nearby. Through City Memory and deep within the Axis City's infrastructure, orthodox Naderites and Korzenowski factioners—his people—were consolidating the gains made in the past few hours. Sympathetic personalities in City Memory, including his father, oversaw the interdicted communications nets.
Everything was proceeding as planned. Yet Corprep Gardner was more unhappy than he had ever been in his two centuries of life. He cared little for the accusations of the Presiding Minister or the President. He had opposed them often enough in the past, and felt the sting of their power, to relish watching them squirm.
What made him miserable was the knowledge that the action violated all he had stood for in the Nexus, and all he had espoused before his election as Corprep by the New Orthodox Naderite precincts of Axis Nader. He felt peculiarly vulnerable, as if one of his own partials might chastise him for a breach of honor and faith.
Already, his factioners were preparing to move the city south along the flaw, toward the Thistledown. They would have to remove barriers as they went; that would take time.
In the center of the empty Nexus Chambers, surrounded by the armillary information rings, he awaited the return of the President and the senators and corpreps now convened on the Jart question. When they attempted to reenter the Axis City, and were denied, what Gardner called the action wouldn't matter.
Then the revolt would have truly begun.
A partial of the President appeared to one side of him and awaited his attention. Gardner took his time. Finally, satisfied that all was going well—and that the partitioning of City Memory had been particularly successful—Gardner allowed the partial to pict.
"Do you have the support necessary?" the partial asked. "My original is on his way. Director Hulane Ram Seija has already filed court proceedings. Needless to say, you haven't followed the usual Nexus procedures."
"No. Emergencies and opportunities." His last statement picted a wide range of emotionally charged symbols: the complex Naderite sign for home, consisting of Earth surrounded by a circle of DNA; this symbol engulfed in fire, replaced by a singed animal skull; and the requisite meaning qualifiers. Then, more straightforward, "Ser Ram Seija can try his case after secession. In absentia. Besides, we are working now to have him tried for violation of Nexus procedure."
"I've heard nothing of this," the partial said, incredulous.
"You've been busy, Ser President." He regretted the tone of his response; the President had been working hard on the Jart problem, and he did not wish to imply any dereliction of duty; it was enough for his people to have taken advantage of the President's absence. "It was a minor infraction, but I am within my rights. As long as there is a court question, all of Ser Ram Seija's duties are suspended. Senator Prescient Oyu is his replacement in command—she has left a partial here, to carry on her duties."
The partial of van Hamhuis then picted that he had protested the insurrection and tried to muster the votes necessary to override Corprep Gardner. Gardner already knew this; by legal maneuvering, and with the advice of Senator Prescient Oyu's partial, he had declared the vote invalid—lacking a quorum of incarnate senators and corpreps, and called by a partial instead of an incarnate.
The fight was far from over. The incarnate Tees van Hamphuis would be in the vicinity of the Axis City in just a few hours.
Chapter Sixty
At the limit of the plasma tube in the first through fourth chambers, arrow-shaped craft patrolled back and forth. Other larger craft flew at will above the valley floors, and the double-barred crosses were everywhere.
In the fourth chamber zero compound, Hoffman realized that any attempt at defense would be useless. The technology and the force they were up against was insurmountable.
"There's no doubt they're from the corridor?" she asked Berenson in the middle of the compound as they stood by a truck prepared to evacuate them.
"No doubt," Berenson said, accent thick with nerves.
"Then we can hope for the best."
"And what would that be?" Polk asked. Her hair was wildly astray; for impeccable Janice Polk, that was a definite sign of frayed nerves.
"That they're human. Our descendants."
Rather than risk wholesale slaughter, she instructed Gerhardt to tell his soldiers not to fire unless directly assaulted. She could not, of course, instruct the Russians—they would have to figure out the situation on their own.
Wallace and Polk helped with the communications. They spoke with several Russians on the radio, but the Russians refused to provide any information on their situation—though, in all fairness, neither of the women were able to get in touch with an officer. Rimskaya stepped forward and offered to take a message to the Russian leaders, on foot if necessary. That was gallant, but Hoffman refused. By the time the Russians received the message, the situation
would probably have changed.
Three crosses in a triangle formation flew over the compound. One broke away at the southern cap and returned to hover directly over the center, and over Hoffman. Bright flashes of light appeared between Berenson and Hoffman. Hoffman jerked and stumbled against Rimskaya; Berenson stood his ground with eyes wide and nostrils flared.
Then the cross spoke, its voice that of a woman.
"You are not in danger. Under no circumstances will you be harmed. You will also not be allowed to harm each other. All occupied chambers are under Axis City jurisdiction."
"So what do we do? Kowtow?" Beryl Wallace asked.
Gerhardt approached them slowly, one eye cocked toward the hovering cross. "Jesus, that's scary," he said to Hoffman in a whisper. "My people don't know whether to piss down their legs or bow in submission."
"Sorry I can't reassure them," Hoffman said.
"What in hell is 'Axis City?’" Berenson asked.
"I could hazard a guess," Hoffman said. "Where everybody lives down the corridor—on the axis."
Rimskaya nodded too eagerly. "Talk to it, then," he suggested.
Hoffman looked up and squinted. "We intend no harm. Please identify yourself."
"Are you the leader of this group?"
"Yes," Hoffman said. She pointed to Gerhardt. "He's a leader, too."
"Are you the leaders of all groups in the chambers?"
"No," Hoffman said. She didn't volunteer any more information, deciding a witness's approach to questioning would be best.
Two of the larger blunt-arrowhead craft flew by slowly and took up positions at the north and south ends of the compound, hovering about twenty-five meters above the surface.
"Do you guarantee the safety of a negotiator?" the voice from the cross asked.
Hoffman glanced at Gerhardt. "Make sure," she said. Then, more loudly in the direction of the cross, "Yes. Give us some time." Gerhardt used his radio to contact the units in all chambers.