Eon

  “Paradise,” Polk said flatly, looking up from her slate and widening her eyes. ”Better than university.”

  “Any trouble,” Carrolson said, “and you just tell me. I’m senior female here, in age at least.”

  “I’ll do fine,” Patricia had replied.

  She had never been a social butterfly, tending to fall hard and fast—and usually without reciprocation. Still, with Paul to think of, that was the least of her concerns here. Although—and she smiled in the darkness—Lanier was a pretty fellow. So worried, though.

  Patricia wondered if she would look just as worried when she had the whole picture.

  Without knowing she had slept, she heard the chiming alarm on her comline. Beside her bed, a pleasant amber light switched on with the signal. She blinked at the bare, off-white walls and had no trouble remembering where she was. She felt right at home, in fact, and a little excited. She swung her feet over the edge of the bed.

  Patricia had never been adventurous. Hiking and camping had not been missing from her life, but she had never felt inclined toward outdoor activities other than bicycling. Every six to eight months, she became an avid bicyclist, spending two hours each day riding around the campus. The urge would pass after several weeks and her sedentary habits would return.

  There had always been too much to do in her mind or on paper. The mind work could be done almost anywhere, but not while climbing precarious trails or being dead tired after a long march.

  But here ...

  Sometime in the night, she had made the Stone her meat and drink.

  She was familiar with the feeling, having approached math problems with similar zeal. She was exhilarated, her pulse was up and she colored like a young girl.

  When Lanier knocked, she had dressed and combed her hair. She opened the door with eyes wide.

  Carrolson stood behind him. ”Breakfast?” Lanier asked.

  Wearing the standard zipper-and-button blue jumpsuit of the science team, she looked more practical, he thought.

  The clear pale light of the plasma tube never varied and cast only the vaguest of shadows beneath their feet as they walked.

  The cafeteria, adjacent to an experimental agricultural station, was feeding breakfast to the 1500-2400 shift. ”Night” for Patricia had been from six in the “morning” to two in the “afternoon.” Lanier said he slept irregularly; Carrolson was just finishing her shift.

  About twenty of the science team clustered around a video screen at one end of the cafeteria. Lanier joined them briefly, then came back while Carrolson and Patricia sat down with dinner and breakfast.

  An automatic chef produced trays of food, each segment at the proper temperature, each dish surprisingly tasty. A taplar the unit carried a sign announcing, “Genuine STONE water—an experience not to be missed. H20 from the stars!” The water was flat but not unpleasant.

  Lanier gestured at the group around the screen. ”Football,” he explained. ”Hunt and Thanh have patched into the bore-hole microwave and the outside array. Some commercial outfit is relaying a scrambled game to subscribers and we happen to be in the same section of the .sky as the satellite. They’ve unscrambled the signal.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” Patricia asked casually, sorting out the bites on her tray.

  “Height hath its privileges,” Carrolson said. ”Nobody will ever prosecute.” Fresh orange juice was available. Citrus trees prospered under the tubelight. The maple syrup on her pancakes was also genuine, but not homegrown. Lanier noticed her expression of surprise.

  “What we can’t grow in the Stone, we might as well ask for the best from Earthside. It’s so expensive to ship up anyway, quality only hikes it a fraction of a percentage point—and we have them convinced we should be fed at least as well as submariners and lunar settlers. Eat hearty—that’s a two-hundred-dollar breakfast.”

  Carrolson chatted amiably through the meal, talking about her husband’s work on. He was a mathematician employed by the U.S. Office of Science and Technology.

  Lanier said little. Patricia was also quiet, taking her cues from him, watching him from the corner of her eye whenever she thought no one would notice. His Indian features attracted her, but the dark circles under his eyes made him look as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.

  “—really good for you,” Carrolson was saying.

  Patricia regarded her blankly.

  “The tubelight, you know,” Carrolson reiterated. ”Has everything we need, and nothing harmful. You could lie out under it for days and not be burned, but you’d get your share of vitamin D.”

  “Oh,” Patricia said.

  Carrolson sighed. ”Garry, you’re having that effect again.”

  Lanier seemed puzzled. ”What effect?”

  “Look at the girl.” Carrolson drummed her fingers on the lightweight metal table, rigged out of OTV tank baffles, as was so much furniture in the compound. ”Watch out for him, Patricia. He’s a heartbreaker.”

  Patricia glanced between them, mouth open. ”What?”

  “I’m going off shift now,” Carrolson said, picking up her tray. “Just keep it in mind. Every woman on the team has had their letch for Garry. But he’s responsible to someone back home—someone very important.” She smiled mysteriously and walked toward the dishwasher unit.

  Lanier sipped his cup of coffee. ”I’m not sure she’s reading you correctly.”

  “She most certainly is not.”

  “She means I’m responsible to the Advisor—to Judith Hoffman.”

  “I met her,” Patricia said.

  “And I’m not on the social roster because there’s too much work to do here and not nearly enough time. Besides, there’s rank to consider.”

  He finished the cup and set it down.

  “You’d think with so many intelligent people around, rank wouldn’t be that much of a factor,” Patricia said. She felt naive the instant the last word was out of her mouth.

  Lanier folded his hands on the table and looked at her directly until she glanced away.

  “Patricia, you’re young, and this might seem very romantic to you, but it’s deadly serious. We’re working under agreements which took years to iron out—if they’re ironed out even yet. We’re an international team of scientists, engineers and security forces, and whatever information we find is not necessarily going to be available to every person on the globe, not for some time yet. Since you’ll have access to almost everything, you must be particularly responsible—as responsible as I am. Please don’t waste your time concerning yourself with ... Well, I suggest you stay off the social roster. Another time, another place, sure, romance and adventure. But not on the Stone.”

  She sat stiffly, hands knotted in her lap. ”I have no intention of going on the roster,” she said. She hadn’t been called on the carpet, exactly, but she was still upset.

  “Good. Let’s get your green badge and take a ride across the valley.”

  They deposited their trays in the scrubber and left the cafeteria.

  Lanier walked a few steps ahead of her, eyes on the ground as they approached a small building near the northern side of the ramparts. A stocky broad-shouldered woman in a black jumpsuit, with a green belt and red sergeant’s stripes on her sleeve, opened the door for them, then sat behind a desk made of more baffle metal to fill out forms.

  When they were done, she opened a locked box and pulled out a green badge with an outline of the Stone printed in one corner, surrounded by a silver circle.

  “Our security is tight here, Miss Vasquez,” she said. “Make sure you know the rules. A green badge is a great responsibility.”

  Patricia took the indelible pen and signed the badge, then pressed her fingers onto an ID scan plate for storage in the security system computers. The woman clipped the badge to her breast pocket. “Pleased to have you with us. I’m Doreen Cunningham, head of security for First Chamber Science Compound One. Any questions or problems, feel free to visit.”

  “Thank you,” Patricia said.
Lanier led the way out of the guardhouse and up the rampart steps.

  “If you like to exercise, we have a running path around the inner perimeter of the compound, with an extension that takes you to the second compound. There’s a gym pit not far from here. I recommend pretty strenuous exercise whenever possible. The low-g is a bit easy on us. I tend to get flabby if I don’t maintain. And exercise will acclimate you more quickly to the air pressure.”

  “I think the low-g is pleasant,” she said as they walked to the front of a wide plastic-sheet quonset hut. ”Buoyant.”

  Inside the hut were two vehicles resembling large snow-cats, mounted on six rubber-tired band-steel-spoke wheels instead of treads.

  Patricia bent down to look beneath, then straightened. ”Very rugged,” she said.

  “Our trucks. Easy to drive—you’ll learn soon. But today, you’re just going along for the ride. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  He unlocked a door and helped her up the high step into the shotgun seat. He paused before closing the door. “I’m sorry I came down on you so hard. I’m sure you understand how important you could be here, and—”

  “I don’t understand,” Patricia said. ”I haven’t the faintest idea what use I’ll be.”

  Lanier nodded and smiled.

  “But you were right, anyway. If I’m so important, then I need to keep my nose to the grindstone.”

  “Looks like the Stoned work ethic will come natural to you,” Lanier said. He climbed into the driver’s seat and reached into his pocket, pulling out a slate. He offered it to her. ”Slipped my mind. You’ll probably want to make notes at some point or other. Government issue.”

  He switched on the electric motor and drove the truck out of the shed.

  “We’re going into the second chamber now, into the first city. We’ll spend a few hours there, then take you on the Thirtieth Century Limited.”

  “One of the trains?”

  He nodded. ”We’ll skip the third chamber today—too much, too soon. It could overload you. We’ll stop at the fourth chamber security compound for a break and lunch, and then go right through to the sixth chamber.”

  The truck approached a chain link fence stretching for several kilometers east and west.

  “Would it be premature to ask questions now?”

  “We have to start somewhere,” Lanier said.

  “That’s real dirt outside. You could grow things in it.”

  “It’s moderately fertile.” Lanier said. ”We have several farming projects under way, mostly in the fourth chamber. Most of the dirt is straight carbonaceous asteroid material, with supplements.”

  “Men.” She mined to survey the scrub and the low plume of dust behind them. ”Is the Stone still powered-up, I mean, can it leave?”

  “It’s still powered-up,” Lanier said. ”We don’t know whether it can leave or not.”

  “I was wondering ... if we could be trapped inside, if it decided to leave. Then we would need to farm, wouldn’t we?”

  “That’s not why we’re farming,” Lanier said. She waited for him to elaborate, but he stared straight ahead, slowing the truck as they approached the gate in the wire fence.

  “The motors are very old. Some of the engineers think they’re worn out,” he said, as if he had half listened to her and half followed his own chain of thought. He removed an electronic key from his pocket, dialed a number and opened the gate with a radio signal. ”We don’t understand the drive yet. The motors’ last effective act was to slow the Stone down for insertion into the present orbit. They used chunks of mass removed by robots from the outside of the Stone—mostly in the deep bands. Mass-drivers lobbed the chunks towards a point just above the northern crater. That end is sealed off—you’ll soon discover a second reason why. What happened to the chunks at that point, we don’t know; the documentation is difficult.”

  “I should imagine.”

  The truck hummed through the gate and across a track marked by tire ruts and an absence of scrub.

  “All that chain link,” Patricia said. ”Once you prescreened everyone coming up here, you’d think that would be enough security. Must have cost a lot to have all that stuff shipped up here. Could have shipped up science, instead.”

  “The chain link wasn’t shipped here. We found it.”

  “Chain link fence?

  “And figurines,” Lanier said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Humans built the Stone, Patricia. People from Earth.”

  She stared at him, then tried to grin.

  “Built it twelve hundred years ago. At least, it’s about twelve hundred years old.”

  “Oh,” she said. ”Pull the other one.”

  “No, I’m serious.”

  “I don’t expect to be made fun of,” she said quietly, straightening in her seat.

  “I’m not making fun. Do you think we’d ship eight or nine kilometers of chain link?”

  “I’ll believe that before I believe Charlemagne or whoever had the Stone made to order.”

  “I didn’t say it came from our past. Before this goes any farther—please, Patricia, be patient. Wait and see.”

  She nodded, but inside she was furious. This was some sort of initiation. Take the young woman out on a ride, terrorize her, stick her hand into a spaghetti-worm mystery, bring her back and have a good laugh. She’s now a true Stoner. Great.

  She had never stood for that sort of treatment, even as a thirteen-year-old whiz-kid at UCLA.

  “Look at the scrub,” Lanier said. ”It’s grass. We didn’t bring it with us.”

  “It looks like grass,” she acknowledged.

  The ride across the valley took thirty minutes. They approached the slate-gray cap. A silvery metal arch stood before the entrance to the tunnel, which was about twenty meters wide. A ramp rose from the dirt to the entrance. Lanier accelerated up the ramp.

  “How is the air maintained?” she asked. The silence made her uncomfortable. Lanier switched the truck lights on.

  “The middle three chambers have large ponds buried beneath them. The ponds are shallow and filled with several varieties of duckweed, water hyacinth and algae. Plus some other plants we’re still identifying. The biggest pond is shaped like a doughnut and circles the fourth chamber. There are ventilation ducts in the gaps at about three kilometers—you can see them with binoculars, or if you have sharp enough eyes—and the Stone is honeycombed with other shafts and ducts.”

  Patricia nodded, avoiding his eyes. She’s going to be Stoned soon, Lanier thought. Resentment was the first sign. Resentment and disbelief were much easier than acceptance. And the most careful introductions to the Stone didn’t prevent the cycle. Here, everyone came from Missouri. Everyone had to be shown first. All other learning and refinement came later.

  Six minutes after entering the tunnel, they came to a heavy chain link hurricane fence completely covering the tunnel mouth.

  Lanier opened another gate with his key, and they emerged in the second chamber.

  The ramp leading down from the tunnel had been fortified on each side with masonry walls. More fence had been strung between the walls, and a guardhouse stood to one side of the next gate. Three marines in black jumpsuits came to attention by the guardhouse as the truck rolled toward them, its tires grumbling on the ramp paving. Lanier braked the vehicle and shut it off, then swung down from his seat. Patricia remained where she was, staring at the vista before her.

  Beyond the ramp was a two-kilometer-deep shelf of parkland, irregularly spotted by copses of trees and numerous broad, flat white concrete structures, resembling thick building foundations. Beyond the parkland, a narrow lake or river about a kilometer across ran east and west completely around the chamber. A suspension bridge with tall, slender, curved towers crossed the water, set between massive concrete anchors.

  The bridge pointed toward a city.

  It could have been Los Angeles on a very clear day, or any other modern terrestrial city, except for the su
rreal exaggeration. It was bigger, more ambitious and ordered, more architecturally mature. And scattered throughout the city, like bumpers on a pinball board, were the biggest structures she had ever seen in her life. Easily four kilometers tall, they resembled upright chandeliers made of concrete, glass and shining steel. Each facet of the nearest chandelier-structure was as large as entire buildings in between. The chandelier resemblance increased as she looked up and saw them suspended from the chamber floor overhead. Across the two layers of atmosphere, fifty kilometers away, the city became beautifully unreal, like a model behind dusty glass in a museum.

  Her eyes swept to either side, head swinging as if she were watching a slow tennis match between progressively taller players.

  “Good morning, Mr. Lanier,” said the senior officer, approaching to inspect his badge. ”She’s new?”

  Lanier nodded. ”Patricia Vasquez. Unlimited access.”

  “Yes, sir. General Gerhardt passed the word yesterday to expect you.”

  “Any activity?” Lanier asked.

  “Mitchell’s survey squad is going through the K mega now, at thirty degrees and six klicks.”

  Lanier leaned back into the cab. ”The ‘megas’ are the big buildings,” he explained. She shielded her eyes against the plasma tube, trying to see the opposite side of the chamber more clearly. She could make out parks and small lakes, systems of streets—laid out in alternating concentric circles and square blocks.

  She was as far from the opposite wall as Long Beach was from Los Angeles. Despite its scale, the city was definitely human-built.

  Lanier stepped up on the running board and asked if she would like to stretch her legs before they continued.

  “What do you call it?” Patricia asked.

  “Its name is Alexandria.”